Mimicking the plot from her hit 1998 movie Sliding Doors, Gwyneth
Paltrow recalls a chance encounter on September 11 2001 that prevented a
woman from being on the 77th floor of the South Tower when a plane struck
it, more than likely saving her life.

3:13PM BST 10 Sep 2011

The Hollywood star recalled the encounter after receiving a letter from Lara Lindstrom Clarke, who believes the actress may have inadvertently saved her life nearly 10 years ago.

As the United States prepares to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Ms Paltrow said she was more closely involved in the events than she ever realised when she found herself driving home from an early yoga class in New York on that fateful day.

"I was on the way home and it was the morning of September 11 - not that I knew at the time what that meant - and a girl [Ms Clarke] was jaywalking across the street and we kind of both stopped at the same time and waited a really long time," said Paltrow.

The pair then proceeded to do "this stop-start thing" and began to laugh before the famestruck Ms Clarke finally went on her way.

"Ten years later I got a letter from her saying that she had been late for work and we had that thing and she went down to the Christopher Street station to catch her train to go down to the World Trade Centre where she worked on the 77th floor of the South Tower and the train was just pulling out.

"So had we not had that interaction she feels like her life would've taken a much different course. She called it her 'Sliding Doors moment'," Ms Paltrow added, referring to the hit movie in which the plot hinges on whether the Oscar-winning actress' character manages to catch a particular underground train.

Ms Clarke, who was 24 at the time, arrived at her station, below the World Trade Centre, at 8:47am on September 11 - moments after the first plane hit the North Tower. Four of her colleagues would die in the tragedy.

"It was an extraordinary story and all I could think about is all of the people who had experiences like that that day, but aren't able to reach out because it wasn't a recognizable person," said Ms Paltrow.